No Arabic abstract
A solid-state analogue of Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage can be implemented in a triple well solid-state system to coherently transport an electron across the wells with exponentially suppressed occupation in the central well at any point of time. Termed coherent tunneling adiabatic passage (CTAP), this method provides a robust way to transfer quantum information encoded in the electronic spin across a chain of quantum dots or donors. Using large scale atomistic tight-binding simulations involving over 3.5 million atoms, we verify the existence of a CTAP pathway in a realistic solid-state system: gated triple donors in silicon. Realistic gate profiles from commercial tools were combined with tight-binding methods to simulate gate control of the donor to donor tunnel barriers in the presence of cross-talk. As CTAP is an adiabatic protocol, it can be analyzed by solving the time independent problem at various stages of the pulse - justifying the use of time-independent tight-binding methods to this problem. Our results show that a three donor CTAP transfer, with inter-donor spacing of 15 nm can occur on timescales greater than 23 ps, well within experimentally accessible regimes. The method not only provides a tool to guide future CTAP experiments, but also illuminates the possibility of system engineering to enhance control and transfer times.
Coherent Tunneling Adiabatic Passage (CTAP) has been proposed as a long-range physical qubit transport mechanism in solid-state quantum computing architectures. Although the mechanism can be implemented in either a chain of quantum dots or donors, a 1D chain of donors in Si is of particular interest due to the natural confining potential of donors that can in principle help reduce the gate densities in solid-state quantum computing architectures. Using detailed atomistic modeling, we investigate CTAP in a more realistic triple donor system in the presence of inevitable fabrication imperfections. In particular, we investigate how an adiabatic pathway for CTAP is affected by donor misplacements, and propose schemes to correct for such errors. We also investigate the sensitivity of the adiabatic path to gate voltage fluctuations. The tight-binding based atomistic treatment of straggle used here may benefit understanding of other donor nanostructures, such as donor-based charge and spin qubits. Finally, we derive an effective 3 times 3 model of CTAP that accurately resembles the voltage tuned lowest energy states of the multi-million atom tight-binding simulations, and provides a translation between intensive atomistic Hamiltonians and simplified effective Hamiltonians while retaining the relevant atomic-scale information. This method can help characterize multi-donor experimental structures quickly and accurately even in the presence of imperfections, overcoming some of the numeric intractabilities of finding optimal eigenstates for non-ideal donor placements.
We study the back-action of a nearby measurement device on electrons undergoing coherent transfer via adiabatic passage (CTAP) in a triple-well system. The measurement is provided by a quantum point contact capacitively coupled to the middle well, thus acting as a detector sensitive to the charge configuration of the triple-well system. We account for this continuous measurement by treating the whole {triple-well + detector} as a closed quantum system. This leads to a set of coupled differential equations for the density matrix of the enlarged system which we solve numerically. This approach allows to study a single realization of the measurement process while keeping track of the detector output, which is especially relevant for experiments. In particular, we find the emergence of a new peak in the distribution of electrons that passed through the point contact. As one increases the coupling between the middle potential well and the detector, this feature becomes more prominent and is accompanied by a substantial drop in the fidelity of the CTAP scheme.
A few electron double electrostatic lateral quantum dot can be transformed into a few electron triple quantum dot by applying a different combination of gate voltages. Quadruple points have been achieved at which all three dots are simultaneously on resonance. At these special points in the stability diagram four occupation configurations are possible. Both charge detection and transport experiments have been performed on this device. In this short paper we present data and confirm that transport is coherent by observing a Pi phase shift in magneto-conductance oscillations as one passes through the quadruple point.
Quantum coherence is of crucial importance for the applicability of donor based quantum computing. In this Letter we describe the observation of the interference of conduction paths induced by two donors in a nano-MOSFET resulting in a Fano resonance. This demonstrates the coherent exchange of electrons between two donors. In addition, the phase difference between the two conduction paths can be tuned by means of a magnetic field, in full analogy to the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
Two-electron states bound to donors in silicon are important for both two qubit gates and spin readout. We present a full configuration interaction technique in the atomistic tight-binding basis to capture multi-electron exchange and correlation effects taking into account the full bandstructure of silicon and the atomic scale granularity of a nanoscale device. Excited $s$-like states of $A_1$-symmetry are found to strongly influence the charging energy of a negative donor centre. We apply the technique on sub-surface dopants subjected to gate electric fields, and show that bound triplet states appear in the spectrum as a result of decreased charging energy. The exchange energy, obtained for the two-electron states in various confinement regimes, may enable engineering electrical control of spins in donor-dot hybrid qubits.